I know from my experience last year that it’s easy to be clever with the letters of the alphabet when doing the A to Z challenge. However, this time, I’m trying not to be clever, I’m going to stick to my own voice.

Natalie Goldberg writes about her Israeli landlady, a woman in her fifties. The woman called a repairman to fix her broken TV. It took the repairman four visits to fix the screen.

“But you knew even before he came the first time what was wrong,” Natalie told her. “He could have brought the correct tube and fixed it immediately.”

The landlady looked at her in astonishment. “Yes but then we couldn’t have had a relationship, sat and drunk tea and discussed the progress of the repairs. ”

Of course, Goldberg writes, the goal was not to fix the machine but to have a relationship. To make a connection–to touch, to see, to listen, to discover, to drink from the well of the day’s gladness.

This is exactly why I started a blog to make a connection with people via my writing. And that’s just what I’m going to do with the letters of the alphabet through this month!

Like this:

A lover of words. A self-acceptance blogger. A blogging coach. A book reviewer. A woman happily journeying through midlife, moving from self-improvement to self-acceptance and enjoying being herself.
Corinne writes at Everyday Gyaan, reviews fiction at CorinneRodrigues.com and encourages writers and bloggers at Write Tribe and offers offline coaching to writers and bloggers at The Frangipani Creative, located in Secunderabad, India.

Yes you are right….it depends what all words we weave together with alphabets…
Today I read somewhere that people who use words which hurt are not bestowed with enough wisdom to be friends with good ones…
Your post…..reiterated that to me

Corinne, what a fabulous thought about using the A-Z to explore human connections. The landlady in your anecdote reminds me of my grandmum, who is the most interesting nonagenarian I have known, all because of her connections. 🙂
(At 91, she visits her ‘mandal’ – her local ladies club – every Thursday, to catch up on news, the latest books and catch up with some of her friends, who have been members of this club since 1944. )
Thanks for the reminder on the power of keeping in touch.

Blogging is an excellent way of building relationships with other bloggers but as long as the effort is on from both the sides. One-way communication becomes less audible with time. AtoZ Challenge is bringing like-minded bloggers in touch with each other and helping build bridges across nations, loving it. You have started with a bang and the boom will get louder with every letter 🙂

Business as usual – coming from you- yes, please Corinne:-) Love your writings, so Ill be following for sure. So happy to have connected with you through blogging:-) The story with the repair-guy was cute. Can totally relate… many do have the tendency to come again and again don’t they:-) Super start of the challenge:-)

‘Smart’ and ‘not smart’ reminds me of a senior co-worker many years back. Everybody used to tell him he was lucky to have such a smart wife. One day, somebody insensitively asked him how come such a smart woman married a ‘not smart’ guy like him. Before any further damage could be done, I retorted, “She fell for a ‘not smart’ guy, but he successfully wooed such a smart woman, obviously he’s smarter than her!” From that day, people stopped bugging him about his ‘smart’ wife!

EG is a lovely place to be in and I love digging out your old posts are reading them, for they give a sense of comfort and peace. Glad that you are keeping the theme of EG as it is. All the best for April 🙂

Aah…I like this very much, Corinne. A is indeed for Alphabet, I suppose 🙂 And I should add that from what I have seen so far you certainly have connected quite nicely with so many people through your writings and helped people make their own connections too. Way to go, girl! Look forward to your B post and all the rest!

I love the theme Corinne…but I think in reality you are being smart with the alphabet 🙂 And the making connection part says it all , doesn’t it? That’s why we blog I guess…It feels gr8 when people connect to us through our writings 🙂